NASA is seeking proposals from advanced concept research studies in order to help make ambitions into reality in regards to the agency's ambitious asteroid capture mission. The general plan: launch a satellite into space and use it to capture an asteroid, which then could be brought into lunar orbit in order for up-close study and exploration training purposes.

So, what of the plan?

First introduced by Florida senator Bill Nelson, few ever thought that the federal government would ever give any consideration to such a wild, seemingly impossible idea that would involve NASA launching a craft into space, capturing a small near-Earth asteroid, and then towing it back toward Earth in order to settle it into a stable lunar orbit. At less than a quarter million miles away, the asteroid will then serve as the perfect proving ground for new research, testing for the Orion space capsule and Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, and ultimately sending humans to Mars.

Well, NASA got money, to the tune of over $200 million, in the last two budget years. Needless to say, NASA is taking this idea very seriously, but there's a problem: how does one capture an asteroid, anyway?

The problem with this mission is that no one has ever been crazy enough to try something like this before. The biggest thing ever captured by a spacecraft is a satellite, all of which are small enough to be grappled by a robotic arm. An asteroid? Even a small one is far, far too big to capture in such a simple manner, hence why NASA is soliciting ideas.

Yesterday, NASA put out a call to research organizations that it is seeking ideas on how to make an asteroid capture mission a reality. The objectives: bring the asteroid to Earth at as low of a cost as possible. Speaking on this call for ideas, Greg Williams, deputy associate administrator for policy and plans in NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, said that "we're in this sort of pre-formulation phase, studying and gathering input, leading to a mission concept review that we'll have in early 2015, where we'll try and focus down to a specific concept, and then go develop and implement.”

As for input, NASA is seeking ideas in five separate areas: asteroid capture systems; rendezvous sensor systems; secondary payloads; adapting commercial spacecraft buses; and international and commercial partnership opportunities. Proposals are due May 5 (that's not a lot of time), and winners are expected to be announced on July 1. NASA will select a maximum of 25 submissions and hand out as much as $6 million to further these efforts.

In the end, though, only time will tell what happens. For the record, NASA wants astronauts on the redirected asteroid by 2025.

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Dennis is a dedicated amateur astronomer/astrophotographer who has a deep interest in the science of astronomy as well as current events involving space. He also serves as a member of the Board of Directors and as newsletter editor for Northeast Ohio's Black River Astronomical Society. He also writes columns as Cleveland Photography and Astronomy Examiner. Contact him here.